


When evening falls so hard

by A_Diamond



Series: New York Fairytale [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, M/M, Minor Injuries, New Year's Kiss, Past Drug Addiction, Past Prostitution, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-25 23:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13223871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: Somehow, it's been a year since Dean found Cas in an NYPD booking cell. A lot has happened, but a lot has also stayed the same as Cas works his way back to a normal life.





	When evening falls so hard

Things get steadier, with Cas. Not easier, because God forbid anything with Cas should ever be easy again, but solid. They’ve backed far enough off the edge of peril that Dean doesn’t feel like he’s in a car with its front wheels hanging off a cliff, balancing on half a broken axle and a prayer that the slightest movement won’t send it teetering down into the cold, rocky water below.

Before he knows it’s happened, without him being able to figure out how it’s happened, it’s been a year. Thanksgiving comes and goes, Christmas sneaks up on him, and it’s not until he’s booking a Christmas Eve DUI that it even hits him: it’s been a year since he found Cas.

A year. It sounds like so long in his head, but not that much has actually changed in his life.

Dean still lives by himself, still works too many hours and puts up with his mom and brother giving him crap about it because he loves his job, still has a lot of his meals in a little apartment in Brooklyn instead of at his own place. Cas is still staying with Mary, still recovering even though he’s been clean since the end of February, still cynical and guarded and hurt—but hiding it behind carefree sarcasm, except when he and Dean fight.

They fight kind of a lot, it turns out. Because even though Dean’s been trying to keep his promise, to stop treating Cas like the kid he had his first crush on and get to know the man he is now instead, he still wants to take care of him. He’s always had a protective streak a mile long, and sometimes he can’t help wanting to wrap all of it around Cas like a blanket.

Cas doesn’t appreciate his attempts. As far as Dean can tell, he’s even more hostile to being “coddled” by Dean than either Sam or Mary; not that Dean thinks any of what he’s doing is coddling. It has nothing to do with his history with or feelings for Cas, he’s just being a decent human being. A decent human being who’s staring at Cas in bewilderment, because Cas just told him to go fuck himself and he doesn’t know what the big fucking deal is.

“What the hell is your problem?”

“You, Dean. You’re my problem.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean demands.

He’s glad that Mary’s still out, selfishly; even when she doesn’t side with Cas against him, he’s always the one who has to leave until they cool off. Because this is Cas’s home, now, and Dean’s childhood room is Cas’s room—he spent enough time there when they were kids that it makes sense. And while Dean is usually happy for that, thrilled at the thought of Cas having somewhere safe to sleep and even more thrilled at that place being one that Dean still thinks of as home, it just makes him more pissed when he gets metaphorically shoved out the door.

Infuriatingly, Cas just rolls his eyes and stalks past Dean into the kitchen. He takes care not to brush against Dean as he does, twisting lithely through the two feet of space to Dean’s left.

Dean snaps. “Because I offered to make you a fucking sandwich? Really? That’s what you’re pissy about?”

“It’s not about the sandwich,” Cas says with a sigh, then contradicts himself entirely by opening the cupboard and the fridge and starting to make himself a sandwich. He makes it through a layer of mustard, slaps a couple slices of roast beef, then the tension in his shoulders slumps and he looks up at where Dean is scowling at him.

“You didn’t offer to make me a sandwich.” His voice is condescendingly patient, like he’s explaining something simple to a child. He knows that gets Dean’s hackles up, but he keeps doing it anyway. “I said I was making a sandwich. I offered to make you a sandwich.”

He stops there, seems to think that’s enough for Dean to understand what’s going through his head. But Dean still has no idea, so he shrugs defensively and says, “Yeah, and I said I could do it. So what?”

“Do you think I’m incapable of making a sandwich, Dean?” Cas finishes putting his sandwich together as he asks it, all while staring at Dean; making a point.

“Christ,” Dean grumbles, “I was just trying to do something nice. Why do you have to turn everything into a fight, huh? Can’t anything ever just be easy with you?”

The annoyance on Cas’s face shutters behind a blank, vapid smile, and Dean knows he’s said the wrong thing even before Cas drawls, “Am I not easy enough for you, Dean?”

There’s no good way to answer that and they both know it. Acknowledging his defeat, Dean raises his hands and backs away, returning to the living room and dropping onto the couch to try and collect himself. He doesn’t worry about leaving Cas alone kitchen the way he would’ve once, and has to remind himself that that’s progress.

Cas doesn’t come back until the rerun of _Murder, She Wrote_ is almost over. The sandwich he made before is gone, but he has another plate with another sandwich, turkey this time, and passes it over to Dean without a word before sitting on the other end of the couch.

“Thanks,” Dean says softly.

Not looking away from Jessica Fletcher’s latest crime-solving-old-lady adventure, Cas nods.

{}{}{}{}{}

They’re walking back from a trip to the bodega, and Cas has been quiet since checkout so Dean knows something is coming. But he doesn’t expect it in the form of Cas looking down a dark alley and saying, flat like he does when he’s trying to soften his usual manic tone, “I should start working again.”

Dean jerks to a stop and forces himself to take three deep breaths before reacting any further. It’s a technique he’s learned from his shrink, because he sees a therapist now—that’s new since last year. Cas never stopped refusing to go to any kind of treatment, for addiction or trauma or anything more serious than the physical and STD screening that Mary cajoled him into and neither of them will talk to Dean about.

Which is fine. It’s Cas’s life and health and body. He doesn’t owe Dean any answers (no matter how badly Dean wants them). But Cas ain’t gonna go, and Dean figures someone involved in this situation might as well get professional help with it.

Mary might’ve had a hand in pushing him, too.

He breathes and reminds himself not to assume the worst. Cas probably didn’t mean going back to selling himself in an alley like the one he’d been staring at when he said that. Even if he did, that’s the kind of joke Cas makes sometimes, to catch Dean off-guard or to cover feeling actually vulnerable about it. Yeah, Dean’s talked to Dr. Harvelle about Cas a lot; it’s pretty much all he talks about in his hour every two weeks.

Cas watches him work through the initial panic with a wry look, like he knows what Dean is thinking. Dean just raises an eyebrow at him, waiting for an explanation.

Cas shrugs. “I’ve been living off Mary for over a year now. I’m pretty sure the only reason I haven’t drained her entire pension is that you and Sam are helping out.”

“We don’t mind,” Dean protests. “Me or Sam or Mom. You’re not a burden, Cas.”

“Of course I am. I might not be a burden that you object to, but I’m still a burden.” Cas doesn’t sound bothered by the fact, but it can be hard to tell with him. “I want to be less of one. Isn’t that step two of my rehabilitation plan, anyway? Or three, if you count ‘stop whoring’ and ‘stop getting high’ as separate goals.”

Surprised into a laugh, Dean says, “I thought you vetoed the twelve-step plan.”

Cas bumps Dean’s shoulder with his. “I made my own. Your mom has her own plan for me, and you—well.” He looks Dean over, thoughtful, and says, “You gave up on your plan for me.

“That’s a good thing,” he adds when Dean starts to protest. “Thank you.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah. Sure.”

Dean starts walking again, because he doesn’t know what else to say to that, and Cas falls in next to him again.

“Get clean,” Cas says after another block, like the conversation never stopped. “Get a job, get a place. Get a normal life. Living the dream, right?”

Dean thinks about it—really thinks, about what it’s going to be like for Cas in the dismal job market, the dismal rental market, the great big world that doesn’t give a shit about anyone it’s already written off. But he also thinks about what Cas wants, because he’s not a prisoner or a charity case or a project. It took at least six months for Dean to admit that’s how he saw Cas after they reconnected, and he’s had to check his opinions on how Cas should live his life against that ever since. Is it what he wants for Cas, or what Cas wants for Cas?

“Getting a job and an apartment’s gonna be hard with your background,” he tells Cas honestly; not that Cas doesn’t already know that. “No resume, no credit history. But not impossible.”

{}

Mary laughs when Cas presents his plan, but not in a mean way. “If you’d mentioned it before letting Dean buy the groceries, Nora down at the store would’ve told you she’s hiring.”

“But is she hiring someone like me?” Cas asks. His tone is resigned and chiding all at once, suggesting he thinks Mary may have forgotten his situation just because she’s fond of him.

Dean shakes his head and smirks; he knows his mom better than that. She was a damn good cop, and her empathy never got in the way of her practicality.

“She will when you tell her I sent you.” Mary’s answer leaves no room for argument. “And if you want to move out I’ll do what I can to help, but you know I like the company. You’ve got time to save up for a decent place before we get sick of each other, I think.”

{}

Cas goes back to the same bodega the next morning and gets a job working overnights in a ridiculous, too-short blue vest.

{}{}{}{}{}

Dean works New Year Eve’s for the same reason he works Christmas Eve: other people care more than he does, and it’s a good way to build up favors in the precinct for when he needs time off. Plus, it’s usually a busy enough night to keep him busy and awake.

This year it definitely keeps him busy, but it gets too interesting, too quickly and awake turns out to be a problem. One minute he’s walking a drunkenly abusive asshole to the back of his car, the next he’s opening his eyes to bright lights that make his whole head scream with pain.

The intensity of it fades as he winces, and he can make out a blurry, dark figure hovering near his bed. “Took quite a blow to the head there, Officer Winchester,” the doctor tells him in a mercifully soft voice. “But you’re going to be just fine.”

It takes a few tries for Dean to wet his lips enough to talk. “Unconscious?”

The question surprises the doctor, from what Dean can see of her face, but shakes her head. “Not from the injury, though it sounds like there might be some traumatic amnesia—not unusual or worrying, as long as it’s only around the event. We can check on that in a few hours once you’ve rested. We did have to sedate you for a bit to drain the pressure in your skull, that’s what you’re waking up from now.”

She answers a few more of Dean’s questions, gives him details of his injury and recovery that he’s going to need someone to repeat a few more times, and then says, “You’ve got family who’ve been waiting outside almost since you got here. Are you feeling up to seeing them?”

Nodding is a mistake.

{}

Cas lingers after his mom and Sam and Sarah head home. It’ll be another day or two before Dean is released from the hospital, and he’s not really looking forward to the down time. He can’t even read or watch TV without getting a headache, he has no idea how he’s going to keep from losing his mind with boredom.

“Don’t you have to get to work?”

“Shut up,” orders Cas. He’s tenser than Dean’s seen him since their time in the interrogation room after Cas’s arrest, but at least he’s not high and twitchy with it. He paces away from Dean’s bed, to the window, and stares out of it for a second—there’s nothing there, just black night and yellow street lights—before coming back to Dean.

Dean tries to say something else but Cas stops him before he can; not with another command for silence, but with his lips, chapped and barely there before they’re gone. He bites them as Dean stares up at him, then quirks a smile that Dean’s only used to seeing when Cas has said something scathing and pessimistic.

“What—what was that?” Dean asks when it becomes clear Cas doesn’t plan to explain himself.

“Looking for a contact high,” Cas lies. Then he does it again, stays longer so that Dean has a chance to kiss him back, to feel Cas’s breath mingling with his between their slightly parted lips.

“Happy New Year,” Cas whispers like a prayer when he draws back. “Don’t fucking die on me.”


End file.
